London's best craft beer bars and pubs

Craft beer – interesting, progressive beers made by small-scale breweries, and distinct from real ale – is often explosively hoppy and quite unlike traditional British beer. An increasing number of London bars and pubs are specialising in them. Here's our pick. Do you have a favourite bar that serves brilliant craft beer? Let us know about it – leave a comment below.

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Find London's best stouts

Put down that pale ale and let go of the lager – summer is over, which means it’s time to seek comfort in smooth, roasty, rich brews big on chocolate, coffee and – naturally – booze. That’s right, it’s time to get stuck into some stout (and porter, which, though the debate rages among beer nerds, is commonly considered to be basically the same thing). Here are eight London-brewed dark beers we rank among the very best.

Comments

Need a place that sells 5-litre minikegs and lets you get on with it. None of this getting up and down like a whore's drawers. The Jolly Gardeners on Black Prince Road sold Bitburger kegs for under £30 but it unaccountably closes at 5pm these days. Any ideas?

Real ale is craft beer but not all craft beer can be real ale. Cask ale still has its yeast alive and kicking and these beers require great skill from brewer to dispensing to maintain those beautiful flavours. Time Out then goes on to recommend a number of fine pubs and bars most of which are known for an outstanding selection of real ales. Use these pubs and enjoy whatever takes your fancy.

@James L The top of the article makes a clear (if arguable) distinction between "craft beer"
and "real ale". Harvey's are a very good regional brewer of real ale.
They make excellent beer and the Royal Oak is an excellent pub but
doesn't seem a natural fit for this piece.